


Abstraction

by whilst



Category: Android: Netrunner
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Gen, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 19:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3821689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whilst/pseuds/whilst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Partnerships have their uses. There are limits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abstraction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [segfault](https://archiveofourown.org/users/segfault/gifts).



_"The secret to Weyland's success is not a secret at all. It is your faith in our vision that makes everything possible. We are _all_ working towards a brighter future, together."_

__________________________

\-- **Dinosaurus [CT]** began contacting **Deep Red [RR]** \--

CT: hey  
RR: Hey. What are you getting?  
CT: whole lot of nothin. creeper bots and bg programs. no content.  
RR: Damn, same here.  
RR: I was hoping I missed something.  
CT: nope. if your datas complete then the walls are buzzing but theres no one home  
CT: whats the point of all that beefed up ice if ur just going to protect zilch  
RR: To be a prick?  
CT: lol  
RR: Looks like it's just a decoy. Not WC's usual game, but I think we've wasted enough time and credits on this venture. Let's pull out.  
CT: yeah see u in a few rr.

 **Dinosaurus [CT]** ceased contacting **Deep Red [RR]** \--

Red dragged herself into the stinging hot water as though her body bore the aches and pains that used to accompany the kind of exhaustion she's experiencing now. It isn't. There isn't a scratch on her and not a muscle screams when she reaches for the soapfactent, but the water runs cold before she remembers to wash the suds away, to step out of the shower, to stagger into bed still dripping wet and barely under covers. It's a worknight.

__________________________

There are plenty of tactical reasons to take a day job. It's a legitimate source of credits. It's an alibi. It's... civilian practice and Red doesn't wear sleeveless shirts, Red exhibits dull interest in military industrial politics, Red remembers to flinch when a girder slips and slams into the pavement outside of the office. The construction work next door has been going on for the past month, and none too quietly, and she has only ever tried to draw her faithful slinger one time, the very first time, and there were no witnesses to be reminded of her vet status. (No witnesses and no gun at her hip. A dry run.)

After hours, she frequents cybershops, sits alone, lets her databot log her hours at online poker, bingo, world of warcraft. She's leading a double-life, a regular Clark Kent, and so it's not until nearly twenty-four hours after her last failed run that she digs in somewhere secure _enough_ to crack open Deep Red and to connect what she sees to the uneasy feeling that has been building all day. Nearly a full day obliviously tagged.

_Careless!_

The sort of careless that got runners killed. You didn't have to be an anarch or a world-class tactician to sense the Weyland pattern and Reina Roja was both. In the privacy of her #3 safehouse (and how long would that be the case?), with no call to put on a professional front, Red ground the heels of her palms into her eyes, let the fear and frustration wash through her and out again.

This wasn't a loss, it was an unfavorable exchange. So the false branch with its phantom processes had been more than a decoy; it had been a trap. She had come away tagged, but without a scrap of damage to her rig, to her mind, to her body. That wasn't Weyland's style – or it hadn't been. Adapt or die.

But it wasn't just her anymore.

__________________________

\-- **Deep Red [RR]** began contacting **Dinosaurus [CT]** \--

RR: Traffic was a little more interested in me than I like.  
RR: I think we've got trouble. Stay inside.  
RR: Chaos Theory.  
RR: Chaos Theory, are you there?  
RR: Mierda.

She couldn't afford to wait much longer. No point in feeding the ears in the wires; Red suited up and began making tracks for the sleepy residentials of Rockvil Estates, beyond the shadow of the Bradbury Towers.

__________________________

16.35 hours. That's how long it had taken for Sam and Dinosaurus to conclude their romp, but they'd done it. She pulled out of the matrix, exhausted and satisfied, her meat already curled under covers and half-dozing. She almost went straight to sleep, but the message sign was blinking insistently, and Dinosaurus was watching her reproachfully which could only mean one console incoming.

She peeled her eyelids back open.

\-- **Deep Red [RR]** began contacting **Dinosaurus [CT]** \--

RR: Traffic was a little more interested in me than I like.  
RR: I think we've got trouble. Stay inside.  
RR: Chaos Theory.  
RR: Chaos Theory, are you there?  
RR: Mierda.

Damn, for real.

CT: m here  
CT: sorry had a thing  
RR: A run, you mean.  
CT: u tracing me now?  
RR: No, I just queried. You're the one who designed your console to be susceptible to sweet-talk.  
CT: that lil snitch  
RR: So what was it?  
CT: u dont know?  
RR: It just said you were running.  
RR: In the meantime, you need to deactivate Dinosaurus.  
CT: uhhh  
RR: Not just shut down. Deactivate.  
CT: um no way  
RR: I'm serious. I was tagged.  
CT: what the hell  
CT: im not curbing dinosaurus just cause some minieyes have you spooked  
CT: this is my partner were talking about  
RR: And this is Weyland we're talking about.  
RR: Nevermind I'll deal with this when I get there.  
CT: what

\-- **Deep Red [RR]** ceased contacting **Dinosaurus [CT]** \--

__________________________

Rockvil Estates didn't see too many home invaders bursting in on a cloud of shattered glass. The G-mod suddenly in Sam's room tucked and rolled neatly, shoulder to hip, back up on her feet in less time than it took for Samantha to tuck Dinosaurus behind her back. 

"Mierda, stubborn little bitch." There wasn't much for reminding you that you were fifteen years old like being confronted by towering and _angry_ cyborg soldier in your bedroom while home alone in your pajamas. "Your partner has more sense than you. No one else home?"

Chaos Theory would demand explanations. Chaos Theory would get mad. Sam shook her head mutely. They were hardly ever home.

"Let's go," said Reina Roja and she threw Sam over her shoulder and leapt out the broken window.

Sam didn't scream as they fell, or when they landed on a waiting mini-hopper and began immediately streaking across the sky. She didn't scream when, only half a block away and hanging half upside-down, she watched half her building complex burst into flames. She didn't scream until Reina Roja had ensconced them, through some complex series of timed drops and leaps, in some abandoned warehouse, and matter-of-factly put her fist through Dinosaurus.

After that, she didn't stop for a long time.

__________________________

_"We build our relationships on trust."_

__________________________

It seemed like hours before Chaos Theory quieted down to wet hiccups or the occasional moan. Not bad for a girl of, what, fifteen? Ten? Maybe the same age Red had been when she'd started tactical. Still painfully young, embarrassingly suburban, and cradling the remains of her console like it was the corpse of her last friend, nestled in the shadows of the crates lining the safehouse.

"Charlotte," she said, as kindly as she could. She was ignored. "Charlotte. It was necessary. We were traced. There's only so much lead-lining can do." 

Chaos Theory nodded mutely, still crouching, tears streaming. Not so much a child, then. 

"It's only a chassis. Deep Red should be able to pull its little code boyfriend out of the ether easy." 

Chaos Theory nodded again. G-mods, dataddiction, there was the unavoidable fact of her faction. . . Red sighed. "I'm going to need you to talk to me. Weyland shouldn't have been able to trace you. If it hadn't been for the surveillance -"

"It was NBN." Chaos Theory's voice was husky, raw, unused. "And my name isn't Charlotte."

"I know." Red leaned against her crate. "I can put it together from here. But I still need you to talk to me. What did you run?"

"Wasn't Weyland," Chaos Theory said after a while. "Carto-Intel Tech. Sock for NBN."

"NBN? So you weren't Agenda fishing then."

"You're always talking about doing the unexpected," Charlotte explained. Apologized. Accused. "And how merging strengths is also merging weaknesses. You're my partner and you found me in meatspace, but when we first started talking you wouldn't have been able to. I'm not underestimating you, I just know it. How good I am."

Red raised an eyebrow, gestured for her to continue. 

Chaos Theory cleared her throat, kept going. "I figured it goes both ways, right? Not the two of us. The two of them."

"Did you get what you wanted?"

__________________________

_"Of course Weyland empathetically denies any involvement in the recent release. That is not how we do business, and frankly, the suggestion is abhorrent."_

_". . . . "_

_"The documentation? The footage? Do you realize how simple it would be for a corporation – an unspecified corporation – to falsify documentation or fabricate footage? Or for a third party to tamper with them? _

_". . . . "_

_"No, the holdups in partnership negotiations have nothing to do with recent events. Our investigations are ongoing. "_

_". . . . "_

_"No more questions."_

**Author's Note:**

> I probably should have given up on being sneaky as soon as pesterlogs started sprouting in the prose. I can start waving my arms excitedly at you about this canon now, at least! It is very cool and interesting; thank you for introducing it to me.


End file.
